Former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré is dead

Former President of Chad, Hissène Habré, died at the age of 79 in Senegal where he had been life imprisonment, in 2016, for crimes against humanity, announced Tuesday, August 24, the Senegalese Minister of Justice, Malick Sall. “Habré was placed in the hands of his Lord”, declared the minister on the TFM channel. Senegalese media reported that he had succumbed to Covid-19.

Hissène Habré, who ruled Chad from 1982 to 1990, was sentenced on May 30, 2016 to life imprisonment after an unprecedented trial in Dakar – by the Extraordinary African Chambers, created under an agreement between the African Union and Senegal – where he was found guilty of crimes against humanity, rape, executions, slavery and kidnapping. A Chadian commission of inquiry thus estimated at 40,000 the number of political assassinations perpetrated by his regime.

Overthrown in 1990 by a coup that installed Idriss Déby (died in April 2021 and replaced by one of his sons, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno) in power and forced him into exile in Senegal, Hissène Habré committed these abuses through his political police, the dreaded DDS, the documentation and security directorate.